Why explaining your save system is a good idea.

[Keyoke]

Alright, so I'm a bit annoyed right now, but it's just a game so I managed to calm myself down. I'll start from the beginning.

I started playing yesterday. Got super addicted and loved it, played for 7 hours trading and doing the stuff I love to do in these games. I was wondering how saving works in this game and noticed at one point it saves in space stations, which is fair enough in these games. It's how it works in the X games and also how it works in Starpoint Gemini.

Today I started playing, played for 5 minutes, helped some military vessel to fight off criminals of some sort or something. I started chatting with them out of curiosity to see what can happen. I asked them for help, they said they have better things to do in a really snarky way and I answered "In that case you can go to hell" (or something similar). ♥♥♥ for tat.

Apparently, this offended them so much that they started attacking me in my tiny ship. I guess I didn't realize how offensive I was. I exited since I had no chance of getting away and wanted to reload, no problem it's only 5 minutes lost.

Turns out it saves the game when you exit. My game is ruined and I cannot continue. 7 hours lost. Guess it was good that it happened now rather than later.

Anyway, perhaps having an autosave as backup would not be the worst. This really is the first time I've encountered a problem like this in any game. Few games punish your for not being patient enough to wait for your imminent death. Unless it's a roguelike game.

Anyway, all that said. I loved what I saw. Might try again later assuming if I can muster the energy to do it all again. Right now it's a bit too bitter of an experience.

PS. If there's something I've misunderstood, please feel free to correct me.

[T0nedude]

I sympathize, I had a similar experience, it's a frikking dumb system and no mistake. How many game designers does it take to frak up a save system? What I do now is keep the save folder open and every time I leave a station, take a quick backup by alt-tabbing and saving it somewhere just in case I get jumped and whacked from one station to another, etc. What a dumb dumb dumb system. I've got to the stage where my ship and I are generally capable of taking on most things that get thrown at me (or can manage to escape). But with this game you never know when you can get frakked over, so I never take chances. BTW isn't there a backup (.bkup) version of the save file saved as well?

EDIT: I did load up one game where I was in trouble and all the ships attacking me had vanished, this was after several attempts at trying to escape, maybe the game took mercy on me to let me continue?

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

See this sticky thread:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/290300/discussions/0/483367798513622760/

If you quit and reload in a fight with <25% health it will move you out of combat. It's hacky and not documented in-game, but it's a way out.

[Ifret]

Also you may decide to recover your back up save. If that was your only save, go to your save directory, rename savegame_dat.zbs_bkup to savegame1.dat load game, choose save: save 2.
If you now have multiple saves you may need to change the savegame name like:
savegame2.dat
savegame3.dat
etc.
as to not overwrite a save

[mcqueen]

Its a pain and its not documented but exiting to title, then continue, from the "esc/system" menu is the "quick save" function in the game. You can use it anywhere in the game except inside station I believe. Also its better to die and go back to your previous save. So if you don't make a lot of station stops, you should get into the habit of saving elsewhere. It may be stupid but its currently one of the few options we have to save games.

[Zidders 'Rockin' Bard' Roofurry]

Originally posted by T0nedude:

. What a dumb dumb dumb system.

It is what it is because when they tried to do it any other way it led to some pretty serious performance issues due to all the physical objects that need to be saved. Doing it whenever just made the game stutter which is why it works the way it does now. When you enter and leave a station or exit to the main menu it takes a second to pack everything up.

It might not be perfect but it's not 'dumb'. The developers aren't dumb. Doing it the way they did is the best way a pair of really smart dudes could come up with.

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

You're missing the other obvious option: don't save on exiting unless the player wants to, either by choosing a save option before quitting or by answering a prompt.

[Tyrian]

Originally posted by Zidders Roofurry:

It is what it is because when they tried to do it any other way it led to some pretty serious performance issues due to all the physical objects that need to be saved. Doing it whenever just made the game stutter which is why it works the way it does now. When you enter and leave a station or exit to the main menu it takes a second to pack everything up.

It might not be perfect but it's not 'dumb'. The developers aren't dumb. Doing it the way they did is the best way a pair of really smart dudes could come up with.

I don't see how performance has anything to do with save states unless your thoughts never go past autosaves.
But even if we're talking exclusively about autosaves, they still have a savegame menu that you can access from the main menu which could easily list the last few autosaves made like e.g. Skyrim does.

So no, I personally don't understand why players in this game are limited to one single save state, which can so easily be overwritten by accident.
As far as I know you have one backup, but one is unlikely to even be enough, since in this, not exactly untypical case, he exited the game to reload a previous state, overwriting his current save, then loaded the game just to realize that was overwritten, and after that likely exited the game to write this post, which overwrote his backup save in the process.

In Torchlight this kind of save-system worked well enough, since in that game, you can barely even get yourself into a situation where you're suddenly surrounded by enemies, whom you have no chance of escaping from.
RG, on the other hand, can easily get you stuck in those situations.

[Xtiaan]

This sounds like a good "Save System" to me. Stop being cry babies.. You didn't pay premium for it and they are still supporting the game. I mean what else do you want???

[T0nedude]

Originally posted by Zidders Roofurry:

Originally posted by T0nedude:

. What a dumb dumb dumb system.

It is what it is because when they tried to do it any other way it led to some pretty serious performance issues due to all the physical objects that need to be saved. Doing it whenever just made the game stutter which is why it works the way it does now. When you enter and leave a station or exit to the main menu it takes a second to pack everything up.

It might not be perfect but it's not 'dumb'. The developers aren't dumb. Doing it the way they did is the best way a pair of really smart dudes could come up with.

You sound like you don't know what you're talking about. Firstly, the fact the game state can be saved AT ALL and works does not change what will be saved in it, if you change WHEN you can save or how often, i.e. quicksave. How would the save system cause stuttering if you could quicksave anywhere? You've never developed a game before have you? The hardest part is having a save system, this game does. The developers won't change the save system simply because they prefer to leave it as it is because that's how they envision it, and it is a dumb system because coupled with the janky scaling system, causes more harm than good. You could put off the odd one or two posts about these sort of situations as people being 'cry babies' but when you have post after post seeping through, you know there's more going on here.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game and will continue to play it, foibles and all, it's worth it and it's amazing it is made by 2 people, but that only emphasizes to me that with more people more could be done, i.e. less emphasis on the scaling system and more emphasis on more hand crafted sectors and areas. I.e the difference between Oblivion and Morrowind.

[mcqueen]

Players should in the meanwhile (whether the save system gets changed or not) learn to use what the game provides. The game even prompts you with a save reminder. Save more often. In flight. Take a detour to check out a junk field and find some good loot? Save. Save BEFORE battles if you know there's going to be one. Drop out of warp before you get to target areas and save. Just defeated the enemy in a harrowing battle? Save. If you get ambushed and it looks like you're gonna die, die. Then you'll go back to a previous save. Perhaps if you remembered to save in between station visits it won't be hours of wasted gameplay. I you want to keep of copy of a specific save game, you'll need to make a hard copy in your save folder. Even though you may find the system less than ideal or even "stupid", there are viable ways to deal with it.

I suppose I don't get all the uproar. I've been playing "video games" since the days of the Coleco Pong console (late 1970's). I've played many games that didn't have auto saves and such. Many more required you to reach a save point or finish a level...no other options. Many more required manual saves on the player's part. Have we gotten that spoiled that games that don't "do everything" for us are deemed substandard just because of that?

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

Why don't you come down off your porch and make me get off your lawn?

[T0nedude]

Originally posted by Stone Cold Jane Austen:

Why don't you come down off your porch and make me get off your lawn?

While you're there make yourself useful and cut the grass please.

[Zidders 'Rockin' Bard' Roofurry]

Originally posted by T0nedude:

You sound like you don't know what you're talking about.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/290300/discussions/0/483368433106010668/#c483368526569201971

"There were big problems with doing it because of how MUCH stuff gets saved. Lots of little objects out there, and it takes about a second to compress it all down, which would cause a stutter (and can''t be threaded, because all the stuff has to stop moving so I can store it!)"

[mcqueen]

Originally posted by T0nedude:

Originally posted by Stone Cold Jane Austen:

Why don't you come down off your porch and make me get off your lawn?

While you're there make yourself useful and cut the grass please.

I hope the mower has gas in it....and a push button starter. ;)

[Stone Cold Jane Austen]

I prefer a push-operated reel mower. Easier to maintain and about as easy to push around if looked after.

Being able to save from the menu without having to quit to the main screen would be nice, and certainly more intuitive.